


worth every dollar, worth every minute

by wartransmission



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-12 03:37:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11153439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wartransmission/pseuds/wartransmission
Summary: “I want to ask,” Phichit says, a devious kind of gleeful as he grins brightly at Yuuri, “how, exactly, did you pay off those student loans during college?"





	worth every dollar, worth every minute

“Truth or dare, Yuuri!”

Yuuri smiles, barely even tipsy on his fifth glass of Mudslide as he wiggles the half-full glass in Phichit’s direction. “What does it say about you,” he begins, smile wide on his face as Phichit grins eagerly at him, “that I am very, very concerned now that you’re the one throwing that question at me?”

“It says that you know me very well,” Phichit chirps, not at all drunk as he is just high on the small-party atmosphere of their little skaters’ gathering. It isn’t often that Yuuri comes to these things, not that he’d ever come at all in the previous ones planned by his competitors, but he’s been slowly learning to get out of his shell and mingle more.

He’s getting better at it, he thinks. He certainly hopes it’s not just _him_ thinking that he’s doing well in being friendly.

“I’m going to stick with truth, thanks,” Yuuri says dryly, rolling his eyes when Phichit yells a “boo!” at him. “I’m getting the feeling that you’ll make me do something really, really embarrassing if I say dare, so I’d rather not.”

“If it involves a pole, I say you give the dare a shot,” Chris comments from his right, sending Yuuri a wink when he turns to look at him.

Yuri is unamused, going by the hissed “ _gross_ ” he murmurs under his breath.

Phichit, on the other hand, looks far too happy at the reminder of that event. “I’d ask where we would get one, but going by the stories from the banquet-”

“Let’s _not_ go there,” Yuuri warns, eyes narrowed and glaring at Phichit, who’s still grinning like he has something up his sleeve. He’d ask what it is, knowing better than to let Phichit be, but Viktor none too casually slips an arm to wrap around his waist and he’s-

distracted.

(It’s been a year, and yet he is still so, so weak for this man.

It’s ridiculous, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.)

“The question, Phichit?” Viktor asks, looking a quiet kind of eager that Yuuri wouldn’t notice it on his face if he hadn’t spent eight months straight by his side- almost literally too, if it were not for the bathroom breaks and other, more private things that they had to do separately.

“Well, since Chris reminded me of the pole-dancing-”

“Oh _no_.”

“I want to ask,” Phichit says, a devious kind of gleeful as he grins brightly at him, “how, exactly, did you pay off those student loans during college? You never really told me- and I never got to see you during your work hours.”

Yuuri gawps at him, a slow-growing horror showing itself in the widening of his eyes and the grimace tugging at his lips. He hisses, dismayed, “Phichit, are you _serious?_ ”

Viktor blinks at him, smile so sincere on his face that Yuuri feels kind of (only _kind of_ ) guilty for hiding certain ‘things’ from him. He asks, perfectly (or seemingly) oblivious to the insinuations in Phichit’s tone, “Is there something wrong with telling us about your previous work, Yuuri? I’m sure no one will judge you for anything in this room.”

“Dunno about that,” Yuri mutters from his place between Otabek and Phichit.

“You’re a teenager- it’s a given you’ll judge everything,” Chris points out.

Yuri clicks his teeth at him. “Whatever.”

Viktor nudges Yuuri, effectively killing his attempt at stalling the matter at hand. “Yuuri?” he asks, like he has no idea about Yuuri’s inner struggling- which he probably doesn’t, now that Yuuri thinks about it.

He considers backing out for a fraction of a second, choosing to drink more alcohol instead, but he doesn’t want another blackout _again_. Not now, especially when he already knows what he’s capable of even in a room of strangers. What more could he _do_ in front of an audience of friends, with whom he’s definitely more comfortable with than random strangers?

Besides, it’s not like there was anything that was actually wrong with his previous line of work. It wasn’t exactly…the most credible, but it was practical enough without having to be too difficult. There were a few mishaps involving grabby hands and pushy clients, but generally? It got him enough money to last his college years. He couldn’t exactly complain when it even gave him the excuse of learning to feel more comfortable in his body without ever revealing who he was.

(Somehow, the Clark Kent analogy works a little too well for him.

How should he even feel, knowing that people are easily fooled just by a pair of glasses?)

“I think you already have a good guess, and just want me to say it to embarrass me more,” he accuses Phichit.

“What, were you a stripper?” Yuri asks with a scoff, clearly intending for his words to be a joke.

Yuuri freezes.

So does everyone else besides Chris and Phichit, with the former looking more intrigued than anything else and the latter looking too giddy that he almost looks like he’s on a sugar rush.

Yuri gawps at him. So does Viktor, though Viktor has this pleased gleam in his eyes that betrays his pleasure at this recently-gained knowledge.

“I needed the money!” he cries out, feeling panicked as he throws out word vomit, “And I hated how I felt so uncomfortable in my own skin, so I had to do _something_. I felt lonely, I felt like I could do anything without my family watching over me, and I just.” He breathes out, visibly frazzled as he murmurs, “I didn’t think it would matter, if no one knew who I was.”

“This explains the pole-dancing skill,” Otabek offers, and Yuuri kind of, not quite literally, wants to die from shame.

And, because he’s already lost the will to care at this point, he blurts out, “I actually did that outside of the stripping job. It helped hone my muscles, and, well.” He deflates, feeling all too much like a worn down balloon. “Yeah.”

“And you said you couldn’t pull off sensual,” Viktor lightly teases, though there’s an accusatory tone somewhere in there that Yuuri thinks is unmistakable in the dark gleam of his blue eyes.

“It wasn’t anything particularly sensual to me?” Yuuri weakly offers, “I just treated it like I would dance practice, except…well, I get more naked.”

Viktor, because he’s a ridiculous man and Yuuri loves him for it, continues to stare at him like he’s a magnificent and ineffable being gifted to him by heaven, even when he’s just literally admitted to being a stripper.

“And I mostly had a hard time with Eros because of the initial interpretation, where the story begins with the playboy,” he explains, feeling a little light-headed as he opens himself up to his small-but-growing group of friends, “who isn’t me _,_ because I’m not- I’m not the kind to chase after someone. At least-” he pauses to smile nervously at Viktor, “I thought I wasn’t. I thought I’d be more comfortable being the one chased.”

“And in a club, dancing in front of dozens of strangers,” Chris begins, looking a lot like he understands, “you _know_ you’re the one being sought out by the audience. It’s not your job to chase after them- it’s your job to make them want to chase after _you_.”

“The seductress,” Phichit says, forcing an awkward squawk from Yuuri’s mouth before he hides his face in his open palms with a low groan of embarrassment.

“Well!” Viktor says brightly, hand sliding up slow and sensual to rest over Yuuri’s nape in an unspoken promise that Yuuri _knows_ he isn’t getting out of this alive (he’s exaggerating) and with his calmness intact (as if it had ever been there at all).

“You’ve certainly been successful in seducing _me_.”

Yuri yells, hands palm-flat over his ears, “Gross! Disgusting! Ugh!”

Otabek pats him on the back, and Chris and Phichit are no help as they cackle at Yuuri’s recent revelations.

As for Yuuri?

Looking at Viktor, the man’s smile a little more sensual but ever-fond on his lips, Yuuri thinks that maybe that confession wasn’t so bad after all.

(Because between the two of them, with him having been the one to confess to getting down to his birthday suit for the sake of money and training, Viktor’s pulse is far quicker than Yuuri’s is when Yuuri plays up an attempt at hiding his face by nuzzling with his nose at Viktor’s jugular.)

**Author's Note:**

> ITS 2:40 AM, GOOD NIGHT!!!
> 
> [Feedback would be much appreciated, friends!!!]


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